No More Night-time Accidents!!!

We have struggled with Ryan staying dry at night for...well, forever. We never made a big deal about it because he had two friends that are a year older than him that had the same issue.  I was a little annoyed, but not concerned.

He was in Pull Ups until he turned five, then my Psychologist aunt recommended that I stop buying Pull Ups, put him in underwear at bedtime and take him to the bathroom in the middle of the night.  I was pregnant at the time and getting up 3-4 times to pee myself, so this worked well for a while.  I continued waking him after Jason came along, since I was waking up to nurse anyway.

Eventually, we got to the point where we only woke Ryan up to go to the bathroom as we were going to bed each night.  He'd have been in his room for 2-3 hours by that point, and, although he was very hard to wake, he was usually able to stay dry the rest of the night after a 10pm bathroom break.

Then last summer, he began having accidents again at night.  He became impossible to wake at 10pm and consistently wet his bed on days when we swam or nights that he had basketball practice.  It was truly an issue of being too exhausted to wake up when he had the urge to go.  That and he likely took in a lot more water than usual on those days.

In August, his six-year well-check appointment was with a new doctor.  The old doctor told me not to worry about it and said that bed-wetting usually goes away between 6-8  years old.  But this pediatrician gave me some tips that stopped the accidents for good.  She told me that these steps would stop the issue within 2-3 months, and, if they didn't work, I needed to call her to figure out if the problem was more physical in nature. 

Here were her suggestions:

1. No more Pull Ups, even on days that we swam or had lots of physical activity.   No more.  None.
   
2. Make sure Ryan gets most of his liquids in the early part of the day.  We'd tried doing the "no drinks after 5pm" rule, but he would always cry because he was so thirsty at dinner and just before bed.  The doctor suggested that Ryan drink a full glass of water with breakfast and another full glass of water as soon as he came home from school.  This stopped the nightly begging for "one more drink" battle immediately.  She said kids need a certain amount of water per day and that they usually don't drink until they're thirsty, which means they're already dehydrated. (that's the same for us, by the way) The point of this tip is to stay ahead of him getting thirsty, hydrating him at the beginning part of the day.
   
3. Have Ryan go to the bathroom at the beginning of the nighttime routine (before baths, PJs, teeth and stories), then again after prayers as the very last thing before closing his eyes.  Stories, get in bed, lights out, prayers, get out of bed to go to the bathroom, then get right back into bed. This has been HUGE.  Every time we forgot to have him go to the bathroom twice at bedtime, he would wet his bed.

The combination of doing all of these steps, every day for a month, stopped night-time accidents once and for all.  I can't even remember the last time he had an accident.  I think he had one a few weeks ago, but the one before that was at least a month prior.

After dealing with extra laundry and changing sheets in the middle of the night for so long, I can't believe we're finally past this.  A friend suggested that I share our victory in hopes that the ideas might help someone else. 

If one of your kids is struggling with night-time accidents, give these tips a try.  They worked for us!